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Rina Sawayama is a rising force in pop, and she put herself on many people’s radars in 2020 with the release of her exceptional debut album, Sawayama. She continued to build upon her sterling reputation last night with a performance of “XS” on The Tonight Show, which was her US television debut. Joined by a band and dancers, Sawayama began dramatically backlit before launching into the song that melds pop with metal and critiques modern consumerism.

Sawayama previously said of the track, “‘XS’ is a song that mocks capitalism in a sinking world. Given that we all know global climate change is accelerating and human extinction is a very real possibility within our lifetime, it seemed hilarious to me that brands were still coming out with new makeup palettes every month and public figures were doing a gigantic house tour of their gated property in Calabasas in the same week as doing a ‘sad about Australian wild fires’ Instagram post. I mean, I’m guilty of turning a blind eye, too, because otherwise it makes me depressed. We’re all hypocrites because we are all capitalists, and it’s a trap that I don’t see us getting out of. I wanted to reflect the chaos of this post-truth climate change denying world in the metal guitar stabs that flare up like an underlying zit between the 2000s R&B beat that reminds you of a time when everything was alright.”

Watch Sawayama’s performance above and revisit our review of Sawayama here.

The “Aim For The Moon” video from Pop Smoke’s posthumous album utilizes a time-honored hip-hop tradition to work around the loss of the Brooklyn rapper, employing a pair of pint-sized stand-ins for Pop Smoke and Quavo. Previously employed by everyone from Biggie to Macklemore, the “get child doppelgangers to perform these wildly inappropriate verses” schtick almost never fails, and Pop Smoke’s team sticks the landing here. The mini-Smoke and Quavo kids are given the run of a massive mansion and go cruising in a Maybach, all while perfectly lip-syncing the pulsating drill song’s boastful lyrics.

Both videos from Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon has had to employ some kind of workaround after Pop Smoke’s tragic death earlier this year (yes, this year. 2020 has been a decade long, at least). The video for “The Woo” featured live performance footage cut into 50 Cent and Roddy Ricch’s video appearances, while Pop Smoke’s features from other artists’ videos used old footage shot before his death. Thanks to his prodigious work ethic, though, there has been plenty of new material to go around. Not only were 50 Cent and Pop Smoke’s manager able to put together a deluxe version of his album, but he was also featured on a number of tracks from artists like Lil Tjay, Gunna, Nav, and Fivio Foreign.

Watch the “Aim For The Moon” video above.

Halloween is just days away, which means that at the moment you’re reading this, it’s almost certain that somebody somewhere is watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The 1975 movie is basically the definition of a cult classic, and it has been honored in many ways in the decades following its release. Now Tenacious D have offered a tribute to the film with a cover of the song “Time Warp” from the movie, and they got a bunch of guests involved.

The video was uploaded to Jack Black’s JablinskiGames YouTube channel, and the performance is mostly led by Tenacious D with the guest contributors popping in to recite a line. They got some musical peers to join them: Phoebe Bridgers, Karen O, King Princess, and Peaches. Even Susan Sarandon, who stars in the original film, got in on the fun. Also appearing in the star-studded clip are Elizabeth Warren, Eric Andre, Ezra Miller, George Takei, Ilana Glazer, Jamie Lee Curtis, John Heilemann, John Waters, Pete Buttigieg, Michael Peña, Reggie Watts, and Sarah Silverman. The video was released to help promote voting in the upcoming election.

Rocky Horror star Tim Curry wasn’t involved, but he’ll have his own thing going on this Halloween, as he’s hosting a livestream of the film to benefit the Democractic Party of Wisconsin.

Watch the “Time Warp” cover above.

The first thing you should know about the new Saved by the Bell, the one that’s coming to Peacock, is that Zack “Attack” Morris is now the governor of California. The second thing you should know is that Kelly Kapowski is the first lady of California. The third thing: Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Tiffani Thiessen are back to reprise their characters, as are Elizabeth Berkley as Jessie Spano and Mario Lopez as A.C. Slater, respectively.

The new Saved by the Bell — which comes from Emmy-winning 30 Rock writer and Great News creator Tracey Wigfield — is like Fuller House, but more self-aware; there’s social commentary about “privileged” Bayside High students, but also cheese-based magic and numerous references to the original series, including the “cool” way to sit in a chair and the return of Zack Attack. No Screech, though, which is probably for the best.

Here’s more on the new Saved by the Bell:

In the new series, when California governor Zack Morris gets into hot water for closing too many underfunded high schools, he proposes they send the affected students to the most well-funded schools in the state, including Bayside High. The influx of new students gives the privileged Bayside kids (who never have a problem that can’t be solved in 22 minutes) a much-needed dose of reality.

Saved by the Bell premieres on November 25 on Peacock.

Wilco leader Jeff Tweedy has two big new 2020 projects: his solo album Love Is The King and his book How To Write One Song. Last night, he swung by The Late Show to discuss both, and he even played a song (a snippet of one, at least) he wrote inspired by Stephen Colbert.

Towards the end of the conversation, the two discussed Tweedy’s new book How To Write One Song, and Tweedy said Colbert’s October 22 monologue following the final 2020 presidential debate inspired him to write a song. Introducing his in-interview performance, Tweedy said he penned the quick, incomplete ditty to “illustrate one of the exercises in the book.” Strumming an acoustic guitar, Tweedy sang, “I’m your host, taste the blood / Tonight’s tooth was the last / It’s for the best, hope is free / But to me, it seems to be / Not as free when you’re hurting for cash / Hurting for cash, when you’re hurting for cash.”

Colbert responded by saying he “smells a hit,” which prompted Tweedy to quip, “It smells, alright.”

He also discussed the motivation behind his new album, saying, “My normal way of coping is to write music and try to do something creative. When the weight of this was all hitting me at the beginning of the pandemic, I really wanted to write country songs because it’s like comfort food to me. Folk music, country music is I guess at the core of how I think about music, and it just felt very, very comforting to me.”

Watch the full interview above. He also performed “Guess Again” on the show, so check that out below.

Sacha Baron Cohen was the guest on Monday’s episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where he talked about the Rudy Giuliani scene in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and Donald Trump calling him a “creep.” The actor’s response: “Well, I’m sure when he was hanging out with his good friend Jeffrey Epstein, they probably spent a lot of their time talking about how creepy I am.” Baron Cohen also discussed performing a song about the “Wuhan song” in character as Borat (who’s in character as Country Steve) at a right-wing rally in front of a bunch of gun nuts. He was, as you might imagine, terrified.

“Everyone was singing along and the problem was that some of the militia groups that were in this rally had been antagonizing the Black Lives Matter protesters, so as revenge some of the Black Lives Matter protesters were coming over to confront them,” he explained to Colbert. “One of them went, ‘Oh my God, it’s Sacha Baron Cohen!’ Word got out that it was me, and then the organizers and a lot of people in the crowd got very angry. They tried to storm the stage. Luckily for me, I had hired the security, so it took them a while to actually storm the stage.” Baren Cohen and his crew fled to a van, but the crowd followed and tried to break in. As he previously wrote for Time magazine:

“Under my overalls, I was wearing a bulletproof vest, but it felt inadequate with some people outside toting semiautomatic weapons. When someone ripped open the door to drag me out, I used my entire body weight to pull the door back shut until our vehicle maneuvered free. I was fortunate to make it out in one piece.”

That confrontation isn’t in Borat 2, but you can watch it above (6:55).

George Clooney warned the world that “I don’t look so good” in his upcoming Netfilx movie (and his first movie since 2016’s forgettable Money Monster), The Midnight Sky, and yep, there’s a reason that he tried to prepare us for his appearance. Clooney plays a cancer-afflicted, lonely scientist in the Arctic who’s also struggling to survive on post-apocalyptic Earth. (That’s rough stuff.) Not only that, but he’s fighting to stop a group of astronauts from returning home following an apocalyptic event. (That’s dark stuff.) So, he’s allowed to look a little less movie-star-ish than usual, right?

Cue the David Letterman beard as Clooney also makes his Netflix debut as director in this adaptation of Lily Brooks-Dalton’s novel, Good Morning, Midnight. The screenplay hails from The Revenant‘s Mark L. Smith, and Clooney previously told Vanity Fair that he drew upon his space-movie-making experiences in Gravity while getting his mindset in gear for this film. So, The Revenant + Gravity? That sounds epic, Oscar-y, and like a different kind of late-December movie than we’re used to from Netflix (Bright, Bird Box, 6 Underground). Let’s hope we don’t see any angry (polar) bears entering the equation.

The Midnight Sky co-stars Felicity Jones as a character named Sully, along with David Oyelowo, Kyle Chandler, Demián Bichir, Caoilinn Springall, and Tiffany Boone. The film streams on December 23.

Gorillaz got a huge and impressive list of guests to join them for their Song Machine series, but there was (at least) one artist Damon Albarn tried to get involved with the project but couldn’t quite make it happen (not yet, anyway): Tame Impala.

In an interview with Australia’s Double J, Albarn revealed that he and Kevin Parker actually worked on multiple songs but didn’t manage to get one in a finished state in time for the first season of Song Machine. Albarn said, “I actually talked to your man Tame Impala [Kevin Parker] quite a few times, but we never seemed to get our tune finished. There are a couple of things, actually. But they just didn’t make it onto Season One. But we were definitely in conversation several times.”

He also spoke about the origins of Song Machine, saying, “It is very eclectic, but I think that’s the nature of Song Machine as an as an idea. When I started last October and we put Slowthai and Slaves together, there was no idea about how it was going to end. I didn’t know about Elton. I didn’t know about Robert Smith. I didn’t know about any of those when I started it. I didn’t set out to make an album, I just set out to make standalone Song Machine episodes.”

Listen to the full interview here.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Nearly two months have passed since the Milwaukee Bucks elected to sit out Game 5 of their NBA Playoff series against the Orlando Magic in the wake of the death of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Following the Bucks’ decision, the rest of the NBA elected to sit out as a whole and, later, Milwaukee’s players released a powerful statement demanding justice.

With the Orlando bubble now disbanded, players are back in their home markets and preparing for what could be a short NBA offseason. However, Bucks veteran Kyle Korver was prompted to speak on the topic of how things transpired prior to the decision to sit out the game, and he answered in poignant detail during a visit to his alma mater of Creighton.

Within the video above, Korver describes the situation with Bucks assistant Darvin Ham addressing the team before the scheduled game. Ham has a pair of sons that live in the Milwaukee area, and Korver describes an emotional scene.

“I just sat there in my chair, with tears running down my face,” Korver said. “And I’m looking at my jersey that says Black Lives Matter, and I’m just like ‘What are we doing?’”

It is known that George Hill was the member of the Bucks that first decided not to play. From there, Korver recounts that Sterling Brown joined him, telling the team they didn’t have to sit out. But the Bucks decided to do so at that late hour, with Korver saying there were “like 13 minutes on the clock” before tip-off.

The full video is certainly worth viewing, and Korver provides context and insight for what took place. In addition, he shed light on being an ally in this situation.

“How do I help as a white man? What do I say as a white man in this space? You know what you do,” Korver said. “You stand with the marginalized. And, when you can, you amplify their voice. And you listen to their thoughts. And you listen to their ideas. And you find your way to help out.”

Jaden Smith is using his platform to help underserved communities. The musician announced Monday that he is partnering with Lyft and the Will & Jada Smith Family Foundation to offer thousands of dollars in free rides to those in need.

Thanks to the new partnership, the rideshare company will be offering access to transportation to a network of citizens in need through a $50,000 ride credit donation. Smith is also working with 501cThree, his organization which helps those in Flint, Michigan get access to clean water, as well as the I Love You Restaurant, Smith’s LA-based charity which provides vegan meals to those experiencing homelessness.

In a statement about the initiative, Smith said: “Proud to be partnering with Lyft on their LyftUp initiative. Together, we’ll be providing rides to communities who need them most. In Flint, these rides will be used so community members can access clean, fresh water through our 501CTHREE.org partners. In Los Angeles, we’ll focus on providing rides to grocery stores, clean water and jobs for the residents of Skid Row through our I LOVE YOU community partners. We believe in the power of transportation, and that access to a ride can mean access to an opportunity.”

Hannah Broadhurst, Culture and Entertainment Manager at Lyft, echoed Smith’s statement: “We at Lyft greatly admire the work Jaden has been doing to better the lives of individuals facing adversities. In partnership with WJSFF, we’re excited to impact these communities through access to rides.”